"Ah! it's all very well for Scarry," said another—"cool as a cucumber, don't you know, with nothing against him, and a title at his back; whereas if it were you or me——"
"Explaining he is, by Jove! Don't you see old Chortles shutting him up? Come to me this evening after hall—that's what he's saying, bet you anything! Oh, I wish I could be there to see; and, Lord! there he goes across to Shrimpton's: Peters has remembered, poor old man! He's being led to execution, and he knows it. It was all to save that prig Scarry, who will never lift a finger for him."
"I say, you fellows, are we going to stay here all the afternoon?" said—this incident being over—another of the band. John had been sitting, his pen suspended in his hand, during the little episode above described. The cloud of young men at the window had shut out the light, while the cries and stamps of the fencers who had carried on through all the tumult came in now suddenly like a solo after a chorus. John's ideas were not very quick to come at any time, and that last bit of struggling towards the end of a very unwilling literary exercise is perhaps the worst of all. You are breathless with sight of the shore so near at hand, and longing to get to it. He had not been able to refuse his interest to these incidents as seen from the window, and of course he wanted to be out in the fresh air, and the contagion of restlessness in the others—who could not keep either legs or arms quiet for a moment, and now began to sprawl all about his room, some taking sides in the mock contest between the fencers, some pulling about his books, his photographs on the mantelpiece, and even his portfolios of sketches in the corner—gained on him in spite of himself: and the obstinacy of pride was not perhaps a very sustaining motive, though indeed it was this alone, and not any pleasure in work or desire to do it well, which chained him to that hopeful manuscript. "I wish you'd go," he said, with the straightforwardness which was not out of place in that society. "Brunton, there's drinks in the cupboard; you know where to find them. Help yourselves, for goodness' sake, and go! I must get this confounded thing before I stir, and how can I get on with all of you ballyragging about?"
"Rubbish!" said Brunton. "Leave it till after. You can get it done another time."
"What other time?" said John, setting his elbows square on the table.
"I never knew Jack to be a sap before," said the Eton man. "Come on, and leave him to his fate."
Then one detachment went rushing down the staircase, filling the air with the tumult of their steps and voices. But the fencers and their audience still kept the ground.
"What a deuced waste of time!" said Brunton, turning over the sheets. "By George, Jack, you'll spoil the college! Look here, Gaison, and blush if you can for your confounded swagger of a place. See what we can do here—and the first week of term, too!"
"Rushy, my boy, you're too good to live!" said the other man.
"I'll tell you what!" said John, in his impatience—but he checked himself, for the fencers had put up their foils and were preparing to move.